


Snippets From Before

by beeapotato



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drug Abuse, Gen, Pre-Series, Recreational Drug Use, mentions of john in the war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 11:55:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7170023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeapotato/pseuds/beeapotato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John at their worst moments, pre-series snippets leading up to first meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snippets From Before

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on my tumblr in June 2014, so fair warning it probably isn't that good.

Sherlock slammed the door, flopping down onto his couch under the currently ironic smiley face. A few minutes later a polite knock sounded through the flat. He sighed in exasperation. “Well don’t just stand there, for God’s sake Mycroft, you can open the door,” he huffed, rolled over, and prepared to sulk for a good long while.

The door cracked open a smidge, “Sherlock?” and upon seeing him curled up on the sofa, Mycroft opened the door more fully and walked in, tapping his umbrella as he went.

“Nervous Mycroft, really? It’s just your younger brother,” he snorted and grumbled, “Just”.

Mycroft peered down at his umbrella in mild surprise, and immediately stopped it. “Oh, I suppose. You just sent someone crying from the flat again, your melodrama trailing behind, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“Those were fake tears as you well know, and at least I don’t grovel to people for a living, brother.”  
“Hmm,” Mycroft contemplated how to pursue his question without upsetting Sherlock, weighing his options.

“WHAT!?!?” Sherlock erupted, “Say what you came here to say or GET OUT!” Clearly annoyed, he rolled over, causing Sherlock to see the tips of the umbrella and Mycroft’s shoes by the coffee table.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft said, remarkably calm when presented with such a difficult brother, “You need to come home, Mother and Father are worried.”

“As if they’ve ever been before,” scoffed Sherlock. “Why did you actually come?”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft said, an edge to his voice, “Stop acting like a child and do something; you can’t keep moping about your flat when girl after girl leaves you. It’s getting old. And embarrassing,” Mycroft coughed slightly from his own embarrassment.

“In case you forgot, I did just do something and if I’m so embarrassing you shouldn’t have someone watching me constantly,” Sherlock was miffed and rolled back over.

“Sherlock,” sternly said Mycroft, pausing. When there was no reaction he said for his own benefit, bringing a close to the conversation, “Fine, I’m leaving.” Mycroft grumbled, “You’re absolutely infantile at times, I don’t know why I bother.” The door closed quietly on the flat of 221B.

\-----

John sat on his bedroll, with the heavy Afghanistan sun blistering his already suntanned back, wishing he was back in the rain soaked city of London even if just for a day. The camp was dusty and filled with soldiers bustling around it. “Doctor, everything is packed into the van, it’s time to go.”

John stood, picked up his bedroll, and surveyed the camp for what felt like the last time, even though he planned to come back in a week or two depending on the conditions at another camp. He sighed, ran a hand through his sun-bleached hair, and turned to go. A bomb went off behind him, knocking him down, but not rendering him unconscious.

\-----

Sherlock glanced down at the packet of white in his hand, tired of his dependency and yet craving it ever more. He passed over the money to the dealer, put the packet in his pocket, and walked to a dingy part of London where there were abandoned, condemned houses every few blocks. He stopped in front of a crumbling house wedged between other, less rotting houses and after a second’s hesitation, entered. He strode up the stairs, taking two or three at a time with his impossibly long legs to the second story, where a few others were on different stages of highs. Sherlock went to his corner, the one by the window to the right. His drug-addled brain thought himself secure there because if Mycroft walked in, he would see him and could escape through the window and go somewhere to finish riding the high.

\-----

John was dirty, dirtier than he ever thought he could be, and he was tired, oh so tired, but he fought through the lethargy of his strained eyes and continued working on a soldier with a bullet in his chest. If not for the man whose chest was bared open on the operating table, John would probably be dead. He wiped dirt across his forehead in an effort to keep the sweat from leaking into his eyes, and continued fervently.

\-----

“I am not going to get clean, Mycroft,” Sherlock said dully, holding his violin and looking out the flat window.

The man in the doorway responded, “Sherlock, you’re killing yourself, you know that. You can’t keep pretending that you can live like this.” Sherlock let out an exasperated breath of air. “Sherlock. Sherlock, look at me,” Mycroft said sharply enough to make Sherlock turn his head towards Mycroft. “Oh God Sherlock, you have to stop this. You can’t keep increasing the dose every time you get bored with it.” He tapped his umbrella once against his foot in agitation. “Sherlock, please, just, get clean and I’ll help you find something to keep your mind occupied.”

“Like what.” Listlessly, Sherlock spoke his first two words in the last couple of days that showed any true awareness.

“Get clean and then we’ll talk.” Mycroft tried persuading.

“Then how will I know if I want to get clean?” Sherlock’s head turned back towards the window and he plucked a high E.

Mycroft made a face at the slightly out of tune note, realizing for the first time just how far gone Sherlock was, “Sherlock.” He paused, taking a breath. “Sherlock, get better and I’ll see what I can do to get you on back on as a crime scene consultant.” “Sherlock?” Mycroft said after no indication from Sherlock that he heard him. “Baby brother?” He whispered taking a few steps forward. Sherlock’s head lolled towards the door, eyes unfocused and pulse going crazy. “SHERLOCK!!!”

\-----

John sighed shakily as he was congratulated on saving the soldier’s life. The last few days had been a blur, merging into a shifting blob of emotion. John was drained, more so than he was during training that first week and definitely more than during finals week in medical school. He could barely keep his head lifted up and he rubbed his eyes, weakly taking the drink being pushed into his hand.

\-----

“Will he live?”

“As long as he doesn’t leave the hospital, he should make a full recovery,” the sentence lingered as if waiting to be finished.

“Yes?”

The doctor looked down, “If he doesn’t kick his addiction, and he continues like this, in another half a year to a year, he’ll die.”

Mycroft stared at a motionless Sherlock in the blue and white hospital gown with tubes crawling into his skin, “I’ll make sure he doesn’t relapse.” And with that, the eldest Holmes brother left.

\-----

Dust had been stirred up, settling into the air as John Watson, army doctor struggled out of a truck, his arm to his mouth as he coughed, dragging an unconscious soldier behind him. Bullets ricocheted off the truck and John ducked to miss one. He pulled the soldier free and was working on dragging him to the brush by the side of the dirt path when a bullet found its target in his leg. He stumbled, hardly noticing it, and laid the man in the brush. He was getting up to drag someone else free from the ticking time bomb of a vehicle when his leg finally failed him. He looked down in astonishment at his leg slathered in his blood and fell to the ground after being hit by the butt of a gun from behind.

\-----

Sherlock peered over the police tape at the dead body. “Sir, sir excuse me, you can’t be here, uh, you need to step back,” a young rookie looked into the sharp face of Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective.

Sherlock raised a quizzical eyebrow, “Really,” he said in fake surprise, “I didn’t know you knew who killed this man.” He glared at him, “Obviously not, new recruit, relegated to coffee boy, your partner has you do all the paperwork. Yes, of course, silly me, please, tell me what happened.” The young officer remained silent, “All ears,” Sherlock said patronizingly. After another pause, Sherlock rolled his eyes, “Thought not.” As the police officer started to walk away, Sherlock said seemingly to the air, “And no, your girlfriend is not cheating on you. Yet,” and Sherlock went under the police tape to talk to a certain gray-haired acquaintance of a low ranking government official, leaving the stunned recruit behind.

\-----

John walked up the stairs, leaning heavy on a cane adjacent to his leg. He got to the top of the stairs and cursed as his keys dropped. Picking them up, he opened his flat, and sat on his bed. Kicking off his shoes, John reached over, opening the side table’s drawer, and took out a gun. The cane clattered to the ground and John brought the gun up to his mouth, hand steady as it pointed at himself.

\----- 

Sherlock stared at the needle on his counter full of cocaine debating whether he should risk it. A ghost of a shudder passed through his body and he picked up the needle, stood up, and threw it in the trash, unused.

\-----

“Come on – who’d want me for a flatmate?”

\-----

“Mike, can I borrow your phone? There’s no signal on mine.”


End file.
